Design of an Actuator for Tele-existence Display of Position and Force to Human Hand and Elbow

Abstract

We have been studying on a tele-existence robot hand based on the psychophysical analysis of the tactile information processing. This report proposes an actuator to get a feedback of the position and the force from the robot hand to the human hand. The actuator consists of metal hydrides (MH) covered with copper, Peltier elements to heat or cool the MH and a cylinder with metal bellows. The response characteristics of this actuator were investigated from a point of view of the practical use. The actuator was found to be suitable for the teleexistence hand because it may work without noise, may smoothly attach to the human hand and may be easily controlled by a microprocessor.